Archive for ‘iTunes’

Last week Google announced its iTunes competitor, Google Music, a web-based music store currently only available in the US. It’s interesting to see that Google is trying to play catch up with Apple on many of Apple’s products, while Apple is quietly carving away new products and markets. I am sure GoogleChic won’t like to hear it 🙂

Here’s my unbiased attempt to spell out the differences between Google Music and iTunes. For a very brief overview scroll down for Huffington’s breakdown on iTunes, Google Music and Amazon MP3

Cost: Google Music provides free storage of 20,000 songs for free while Apple provides free storage for songs bought on iTunes and $24.99 per year for iTunes match – for up to 25,000 songs that you haven’t bought on iTunes.

Access: On Google Music, you can access your music via a web interface. Using iTunes match on a desktop would require the iTunes. On your iOS devices you have seamless access and I don’t have to say much about Apple’s intuitive interface.

Storage space: You get 25,000 song storage on iTunes match while 20,000 on Google Music.

Upload: Each song on Google Music is uploaded manually and would probably suck up a lot of time, while iTunes match “matches” your song with its own digital library and doesn’t really upload the song from your computer saving you some upload time.

Quality: Whatever the quality of music you have, iTunes Match gives you the high quality 256 kbps AAC, while Google just stores it in whatever format you have. While legitimizing your ripped songs, Apple is also giving you the best quality audio.

Catalog size: Google Music offers over 13 million songs available for purchase. One missing piece in Google Music is Warner Music Group, third largest record label in the music industry, holding approx 20 percent of the market share. Google is still to finalize deals with Time Warner Music. Apple has agreements with all the four big wigs EMI, Warner Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment, so obviously you can buy across a wider range of music than Google Music.

Social Networking: Google Music is integrated with Google+ and Apple has its own music network called Ping, one of it’s failed products. Google+ allows users to post individual tracks to their Google+ pages where friends get one time free listen of each track. I wouldn’t be surprised if Google+ doesn’t give Google Music the expected edge since Google + hasn’t done much to steal away Facebook’s subscribers.

At the end it comes down to “Will Google beat Apple’s iTunes eco system?” There is a big gaping music hole in the Apple vs. Google war. The only things, in my opinion, that Google has to its advantage is the accessibility and cost, which probably appeals to a wider audience, but there are other forces like Amazon that Google has to beckon with before it starts hurting Apple and the iTunes consumer base Apple has built up over the years. What do you think?

Do you dream of iTunes and AirPlay on Android? doubleTwist has just made your life easier by offering support for iTunes sync and AirPlay streaming on Android.doubleTwist App lets you sync your iTunes to your Android phone and stream photos, music and videos to Apple TV and music and videos to DLNA devices.

The doubleTwist Player itself is free, but if you want to use AirPlay there is a price of $4.99 for it, which I’m sure you will gladly pay up after having fought with your DLNA device for months 😉

Albeit, the thing to keep in mind before you jump the gun is that doubleTwist does not support streaming to AirPort Express! doubleTwist brands its Apps as “The Cure for iPhone envy” and “Life without wires”. Aptly so!

The other options are the Twonky Mobile which offers AirPlay and DLNA streaming but no iTunes sync and MediaSync which offers iTunes sync but no AirPlay.

BY THE GOOGLE CHIC

Is doubleTwist really the cure for the iPhone envy? Or rather the solution for people that are trading in their iPhones for an Android? 🙂

I have to say I came across two iPhone fan boys this week that are ready to throw in the towel and move on over to Android. doubleTwist will sure make their transition easier. I’m sure they’ll be happy to know that for $4.99 they can still stream to their Apple TV from their new phones.

doubleTwist also offers NFC MP3 sharing. Just double tap your phones together and your music can be shared either via Bluetooth or WiFi. Hmm, I wonder when the iPhone will be able to do that!

Music in the cloud rocks. Save your music online and stream it directly to an authorized device such as your computer, phone or tablet. Easy as that. No more storage, copy, sync issues, everything lives on the internet. While there are companies like Spotify, Mog and Rdio in the cloud music streaming, which one of the three big techie players – Apple, Google or Amazon are going to do big in the cloud music streaming service?

Amazon is the first in online music streaming among the three companies. It’s recently launched Cloud Drive lets you buy and store your music online, play it on the web or play it with an Android App on your phone.

Apple seems to be ready to launch its cloud music locker. Apple’s acquisition of Lala, an online music streaming service last year was all but an harbinger of the next Apple venture. You can expect iTunes music locker to roll out soon!

Google, a new comer to the music industry, is also planning to launch an online music streaming service. Its negotiations with record labels have been in the news since last year.HP is also rumored to unleash its online music streaming service! Looks like everyone and anyone is investing in cloud services! I wonder how Microsoft is going to respond.

BY THE GOOGLE CHIC

Have you seen those “to the cloud” commercials by Microsoft? They have built this whole Cloud Power cloud services that allows Windows users to create albums, docs and movies and share it on the cloud. I think it’s a matter of time before Microsoft jumps on the bandwagon and offer cloud music. As for the Fandroids out there, there’s a leaked version of Android Music 3.0 which has streaming capabilities. It looks like Google has laid all the ground work needed for cloud streaming, the only thing that remains is to negotiate the streaming terms with the music industry.

P.S You can download the Android Music 3.0 app off of the droidlife link

Now you can control your iTunes via a Windows Phone 7 App. The Remote App lets you to browse and control your iTunes playlists and albums from the palm of your hand. To make it work, you will need to install a pairing utility software on your computer. The software is compatible with Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7 and Mac OS X.

I don’t get why someone would want a Windows phone 😉 but in any case the $1.99 Remote App for Windows Phone 7 has limited functionality when compared to the free Remote App for the iPhone which lets you control media streaming (Airplay) to Apple TV, create genius playlists, control music streaming to Airplay enabled speakers and control speaker volumes.

BY THE GOOGLE CHIC

If you own music on iTunes, it leads me to believe you have some type of Apple device (iPod, Mac book etc). With that said, I’m not sure why an Apple user would choose a Windows Phone 7 over an iPhone. To me, it seems like a no brainier and we all know that I’m not an Apple advocate.

I saw a Windows Phone 7 in action just the other day and it was so slow, it was pathetic. It was like watching a turtle crawl! Not to mention, it took way too many keystrokes just to navigate to where you want to go.

Better yet, get an Android phone 😉 Android offers a remote app for iTunes as well. You can get the TunesRemote for free!